Athalie Part 29

But he did not stir.

After a few moments she said very gently: "Are you displeased with me for anything I have said or done? I can't imagine--"

"You can't expect me to feel very much flattered by the knowledge that you are constantly seen with other men where you and I were once so well known."

"Clive! Is there anything wrong in my going?"

"Wrong? No:--if your own sense of--of--" but the right word--if there were such--eluded him.

"I know how you feel," she said in a low voice. "I wrote you that it seemed strange, almost sad, to be with other men where you and I had been together so often and so--so happily.

"Somehow it seemed to be an invasion of our privacy, of our intimacy--for me to dine with other men at the same tables, be served by the same waiters, hear the same music. But I didn't know how to avoid it when I was taken there by other men. Could you tell me what I should have done?"

He made no reply; his boyish face grew almost sulky, now.

Presently he rose as though to get his coat: she rose also, unhappy, confused.

"Don't mind me. I'm a fool," he said shortly, looking away from her--"and a very--unhappy one--"

"Clive!"

He said savagely: "I tell you I don't know what's the matter with me--" He pa.s.sed one hand brusquely across his eyes and stood so, scowling at the hearth where Hafiz sat, staring gravely back at him.

"Clive, are you ill?"

He shrugged away the suggestion, and his arm brushed against hers. The contact seemed to paralyse him; but when, slipping back unconsciously into the old informalities, she laid her hands on his shoulders and turned him toward the light, instantly and too late she was aware that the old and innocent intimacy was ended, done for,--a thing of the past.

Incredulous still in the very menace of new and perilous relations--of a new intimacy, imminent, threatening, she withdrew her hands from the shoulders of this man who had been a boy but an instant ago. And the next moment he caught her in his arms.

"Clive! You _can't_ do this!" she whispered, deathly white.

"What am I to do?" he retorted fiercely.

"Not this, Clive!--For my sake--please--_please_--"

There was colour enough in her face, now. Breathless, still a little frightened, she looked away from him, plucking nervously, instinctively, at his hands clasping her waist.

"Can't you c-care for me, Athalie?" he stammered.

"Yes ... you know it. But don't touch me, Clive--"

"When I'm--in love--with you--"

She caught her breath sharply.

"--What am I to do?" he repeated between his teeth.

"Nothing! There is nothing to do about it! You know it!... What is there to do?"

He held her closer and she strained away from him, her head still averted.

"Let me go, Clive!" she pleaded.

"Can't you care for me!"

"Let me go!"

He said under his breath: "All right." And released her. For a moment she did not move but her hands covered her burning face and sealed her lids. She stood there, breathing fast and irregularly until she heard him move. Then, lowering her hands she cast a heart-broken glance at him. And his ashen, haggard visage terrified her.

"Clive!" she faltered: he swung on his heel and caught her to him again.

She offered no resistance.

She was crying, now,--weeping perhaps for all that had been said--or remained unsaid--or maybe for all that could never be said between herself and this man in whose arms she was trembling. No need now for any further understanding, for excuses, for regrets, for any tardy wish expressed that things might have been different.

He offered no explanation; she expected none, would have suffered none, crying there silently against his shoulder. But the reaction was already invading him; the tide of self-contempt rose.

He said bitterly: "Now that I've done all the damage I could, I shall have to go--or offer--"

"There is no damage done--yet--"

"I have made you love me."

"I--don't know. Wait."

Wet cheek against his shoulder, lips a-quiver, her tragic eyes looked out into s.p.a.ce seeing nothing yet except the spectre of this man's unhappiness.

Not for herself had the tears come, the mouth quivered. The flash of pa.s.sionate emotion in him had kindled in her only a response as blameless as it was deep.

Sorrow for him, for his pa.s.sion recognised but only vaguely understood, grief for a comradeship forever ended now--regret for the days that now could come no more--but no thought of self as yet, nothing of resentment, of the lesser pity, the baser pride.

If she had trembled it was for their hopeless future; if she had wept it was because she saw his boyhood pa.s.sing out of her life like a ghost, leaving her still at heart a girl, alone beside the ashes of their friendship.

As for marriage she knew it would never be--that neither he nor she dared subscribe to it, dared face its penalties and its punishments; that her fear of his unknown world was as spontaneous and abiding as his was logical and instinctive.

There was nothing to do about it. She knew that instantly; knew it from the first;--no balm for him, no outlook, no hope. For her--had she thought about herself,--she could have entertained none.

She turned her head on his shoulder and looked up at him out of pitiful, curious eyes.

"Clive, must this be?"

"I love you, Athalie."

Her gaze remained fixed on him as though she were trying to comprehend him,--sad, candid, searching in his eyes for an understanding denied her.

"Yes," she said vaguely, "my thoughts are full of you, too. They have always been since I first saw you. I suppose it has been love. I didn't know it."

"Is it love, Athalie?"